o you plan to move anytime soon? Are you wondering how to move without bringing fleas to your new home?
Is there a way to do so without bringing fleas to your new home?
In this article, I’ll cover everything you need to know.
How To Move Without Bringing Fleas To Your New Home
The best way to prevent fleas moving with you is to treat your home a few times with a flea spray. Make sure to also treat your yard and outside areas.
Make sure to treat include your bedsheets, boxes, wardrobe, and other belongings. If your pets have fleas, you should treat them as well.
For a flea spray I recommend FRONTLINE Plus Flea and Tick Treatment for Dogs which you can get on Amazon
Will Fleas Follow Me if I Move?
Fleas can stick to your hair, your pet’s fur, your furniture, and even your clothes. Thus, as long as you move any of these items to your new home, fleas can take a free ride with you and infest your new home.
Fleas won’t die by merely moving them from one spot to another. Thus, if you have a flea problem in your apartment, merely moving to a new apartment will not resolve the problem.
Pet is the major host of this Parasite; thus, many pet owners assume that once they get rid of the Parasite on their pet, they can move to a new apartment safely with no fleas.
This isn’t true. Fleas only need you or your pet to take their blood meal, and they can survive on the blood meal for a significant period. For those periods spent away from the host, they can hide in your furniture, cloth, and other belongings.
They can also hide in your hair. Therefore, if they get into any of these items, they’ll travel with you to your new home.
More so, if you treat your old home but you didn’t do it well, fleas eggs might still survive and still travel with you.
Perhaps you’ve eliminated all the adult fleas, but if you have flea eggs (which may be in their hundreds or thousands) in your belongings or on your pet, your new home isn’t safe as well.
The egg will eventually hatch, and a new flea infestation life cycle will begin.
Can Fleas Travel Through Apartments
Yes, fleas can travel through to other apartments that are connected. The will commonly travel through the walls
They can travel from apartment to apartment because they share the same amenities such as drainage pipes, gaps in walls, electrical routes, attic space and so on.
There is no way that you can prevent fleas going to or from your apartment.
How To Get Rid of Fleas in a Apartment
You can move without bringing fleas by ensuring that your old home is flea-free. You can achieve this by applying the appropriate treatment and waiting for a reasonable period to confirm there’s no flea left before you move.
There are five steps you can follow to move safely without bringing fleas along. These steps include
- Treat your old home and your pet
- Wait at least three to four weeks
- Treat your home for the second time
- Inspect your pet and your belongings
- Clean-up your old home
1: Treat your old home and your pet
Before you treat your home, you should treat your pets if you have any. Inspect their body to see if there’s any sign of fleas. If there is, treat your pet to kill the Parasite and its eggs. If you succeed in doing this, you may proceed to treat your home.
There are several treatment methods you can adopt to treat your old home and free it from fleas. You can choose the physical method or the chemical method. The physical method requires searching every corner of your home to find the pest.
Once you find them, you pick them with your hand or tweezers and crush them.
The physical method could be time-consuming and stressful. Also, it is not as effective as the chemical method. It may also not get rid of all the Parasite.
Thus, when you think you’ve succeeded in eliminating all the fleas and you move to your new home, the eggs will hatch and form young fleas, which you’ll have to battle again.
Thus, the safer and more efficient method is by using chemicals. To save yourself the stress of ridding this Parasite, you can hire a pest control company to help you out. The company will fumigate your home, killing all the pests.
On the other hand, if you wish to save cost and want to do it yourself, you should purchase suitable chemicals like permethrin or Pyrethrin.
This will kill the adult fleas and prevent their eggs from hatching. You should also focus more on the dark part of the room, including under the carpet, and wardrobe, etc.
You should inspect your garden to see if there are fleas around. If there is, spray according to the manufacturer’s instruction, and stay away from the treated area for some hours. By the time you return, the fleas should all be dead.
2: Wait at least three to four weeks
Treating your home the night before you move may not get rid of all the pests. No matter how lethal the chemical used is, you might end up traveling with fleas. Thus, you should treat your home weeks before you move.
Wait at least three to four weeks after the first treatment. This will help to ensure that the chemical performs its full job and all the fleas die before you move. While you wait for the next three to four weeks, you’ll begin to find dead fleas around.
After the third week of treatment, if you find fleas still moving around, perhaps you need a second treatment.
3: Treat your home for the second time
This should be the final treatment stage.
It helps to ensure that fleas that survive the first treatment stage are all eliminated this time. Also, for eggs that weren’t destroyed during the first treatment and already hatched into young fleas, the second treatment should eliminate them.
4: Inspect your pet and your home
The fleas and their eggs should all be dead by now. However, you need to do a confirmatory test which involves inspecting your pet and every corner of your home for the last time. Check your pet’s furs and face to see if there are no fleas on them anymore.
You should also check your belongings to ensure there’s no single flea living in them because one surviving flea can lay so many eggs to form a colony in your new home.
5: Clean up your old home
After treating your home and confirming that no flea survives, it’s time to do a general cleanup. You should vacuum the carpets and mop your floors.
This will help to remove the larvae and eggs as well as deceased fleas. You should vacuum your furniture as well to get rid of hidden dead fleas and eggs.
Pack your bedding and your pet’s bedding and wash them thoroughly. If your pet has toys, you should wash them too.
Bath your pet if it’s not hydrophobic. This will help keep everything clean and ensure that you move to your new home without fleas or flea eggs.
Can Humans Carry Fleas From One Home to Another?
Yes, Fleas can hide in human hair and belongings, including clothes, furniture, carpets, etc. Thus, humans can carry fleas from one home to another with any of these items.
Although fleas prefer to stay on pets’ skin than human skin because pets’ skin is hairier, providing the pest with a better hiding place.
However, the Parasite also sticks to humans as well. It might attach to the human hair such that wherever such a person goes, the flea might drop there.
Humans can get fleas from their pets or the pet’s playing and sleeping area. For instance, if you have an infected dog in your home and enter your room, the fleas might drop on the floor and cling to your carpet or bedding.
In search of a host on which to survive, the flea might stick to your hair while you sleep. That way, if you move to a new home, you may transfer the flea as well.